These Sentimental Scars
by ricca
Summary: Once, maybe twice a year they meet and compare their strengths and scars. The final battle is coming, but it is not here yet. Several years past TFA movie. All spoilers. Reylo.


**A/N: Saw Star Wars twice over the weekend and now inspiration just won't quit. For the current purposes, until proven otherwise, I'm drinking the kool-aide that Rey and Kylo Ren are not related. If I'm wrong, well, if I can ship siblings in Game of Thrones I can ship cousins in Star Wars. If Reylo fun-times aren't fun for you, that's totally cool, but you probably don't want to read too much further.**

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Once, maybe twice a year they meet and compare their strengths and scars. The final battle is coming, but it is not here yet.

He had picked up the habit on Starkiller Base, or maybe before that, on Takodana, though that could barely be called a fight. A skinny-scared girl with a blaster she hardly knew how to use, running, always running away from the scary man with a red sword. They had crossed blades for the first on a dying planet, then a desert, a verdant island, the same pattern repeating until it stops feeling like coincidence and starts feeling a little more like destiny.

Not that the inevitable encounters ever fully go the way he wants them to.

That's the thing about Rey: nothing about her ever operates as expected. Partially that's his fault, Kylo will admit to himself he's a slow learner when it comes to the steel-cold apprentice. Perhaps that explains why, when he receives a set of encrypted coordinates from a certain Corellian light freighter, he makes his excuses to Supreme Leader Snoke and leaves immediately. In all likelihood his master knows his destination, knows the game Kylo plays. Still, he goes. If there's a recompense to be paid, it will be when he gets back. If he survives.

He thinks the odds are good, but then again he's terrible at these sorts of predictions.

She's waiting for him, he can feel her as his ship comes out of hyperspace and enters orbit around some snowy little rock whose name he never bothered to learn. The brightness of her power sings in his veins as he lands in a fountain of snow and ice. His heart pounding, he dons his helmet and checks his lightsaber where it hangs on his belt. A last quick check indicates that they are alone; no ambush this time. An unwilling smile quirks his mouth. That had been an exciting day and Rey had been absolutely livid at the interference. Her ire was titanic and he loved feeling it flow through her, turning her beating heart cold and empty. No unplanned excitement this time, though, and he palms the button that lowers the ramp to the rocky ground, snow crunching under his boots as he moves toward her.

Rey, still just Rey after all these years, stands comfortably in the clearing, smack dab on the coordinates she had sent him, munching an apple down to seeds and stem. Kylo knows she felt him as definitively as he feels her, and he takes a casual stance a comfortable distance away, drinking in her appearance, a dying man in the desert. Still thin, still hard, still wearing the grey tunic and leggings that refuse allegiance to white or black. Her eyes still shine with that fierce distrustful light of a girl done wrong several times too many.

"Kylo Ren."

His name echoes on the silent planet, neither a curse nor a prayer from her lips. "Hello to you, too." He nods in greeting.

Rey tosses the remains of her apple on the ground and steps closer. "Still wearing that stupid mask, I see. How's the leg?"

Kylo grimaces as her question brings back the phantom pain of memory. Rey had kicked it out from under him as he was going in for a winning stroke, shattering bone and rending tendons. "It's fine. How's the hand?" He had repaid her pain for pain that meeting, exhaust vent in his lightsaber carving a heavy chunk of flesh from her palm.

To demonstrate, Rey holds up the hand in question, marred by a faint pink scar the size of his thumbnail and wiggles her fingers. "Master Luke had some rather pointed questions about what I was getting up to on these trips."

"What did you tell him?" The tang of fear is a familiar friend at the question, at the vague blotchy recollection of his uncle, a man somehow both too much and never enough for a weak little boy.

"That I could take care of myself." The girl tosses her head, errant tendrils of hair flying out of her eyes at the imperious gesture. "So are you just going to stand there talking or are we going to fight?"

Kylo holds his hand out to her, a gesture that a stranger might have mistaken for a gallant gesture. "I am here at your invitation." The Force flows down his arm, power arcing towards the girl.

She throws her arm out, meeting him strength for strength, a superficial attack and counter. Without the killing intent he's weaker and he can feel, through the connection they share, her foreknowledge of his death and the decision that it will not be today. The thought gives him strength, frustration tinging the edges of his vision red and letting him push just the little bit harder he needs to gain an edge on the prodigy. It feels like flying to watch her struggle, eyes wide, tendons stark in her narrow neck as she fights back, pushing until Kylo stands on the razor's edge of being overwhelmed. He feels her commit to the attack, power overwhelming and that is the moment he dodges, dragging energy from the very air around them, blurring with preternatural speed so he quite nearly teleports behind her, lightsaber drawn, dark and silent.

For the moment.

Rey is still caught in her attack, forest and stone sundered by the power she wills and it's a fleeting moment of vulnerability, distraction. Kylo exploits it for nearly all it's worth, nudging her mind, teasing, taunting her with the idea of her loss of control, submission. It makes her angry; tinges his perceptions of her with the rosy shades of sunset. She is frozen for seconds before fighting it off, spinning to face him. "Sneaky," She glares at him, hesitating just a moment before drawing her own lightsaber. "First blood?"

He's not sure when they started this… this caring, these rules, when they stopped fighting to the death or maiming. It is probably stupid, weakness of the heart. There are no rules to fighting except to win, live in victory or die in ignominy. It's a sickness of the soul that he's glad of it on some pitiable level; so fucked up that he relishes these moments to battle, to share in the Force with this sand-peasant, to breathe the same air and drop sweat and blood together. "To surrender." He removes his helmet, letting it fall silently on the ground behind him, and flips the switch on his lightsaber. The blade of carmine energy crackles to life but a kick in the chest throws him back several feet before he can bring the sword into the proper position.

"Suit yourself," Rey holds the hilt of her weapon in front of her and twin blades of blue shoot out.

Kylo Ren licks his lips and grins, swinging his sword in the long, flashy strokes of the seventh form as he skids to a stop. This is a moment to live for: emotions running high, darkness dancing on the edges of control, reckless but so sweet. Silent, he launches himself back at his opponent, raining heavy blows at her crown in succession. He can feel the effort required to brace against the impact, against the rage and fear and pure physical strain on her right side. That, he recalls, is the main drawback of the double-bladed style. Abstractly, Kylo wonders whose idea that was. It's not a bad choice, it makes her slippery, he can't pin or disarm her as simply as if she was using a standard style, and it makes her fast. He ducks to avoid a counterattack aimed at his head. A lock of dark hair flutters to the ground and is trampled underfoot as he dodges the follow up stroke, swiping inside her guard and kicking her in the side.

Their sabers tangle as Rey tries to evade with a hop backwards and she grunts, pain yielding to frustration as the kick connects and sends her to a knee. She tosses her head and glares at him, a look that shoots heat and excitement deep in his guts as she wrenches, twisting to the side and spinning her lightsaber free. He jumps over a blow to the knees and momentum carries Rey back to her feet as the blue light flashes and dances around her body.

Then Kylo is the anvil and Rey is the hammer, blows falling like raindrops. He parries what he can and dodges what he can't, able to mount the most basic counter attacks in the moments where she transitions in her advance: a jab to the face, a kick to the legs. It slows her, but he's learned the best thing to do when she gets like this is to let the shock travel up his arms into his soul and wait. He is physically stronger, even if he is nothing else, and she will eventually slow and tire, only a girl, only human when all is said and done. An irate girl, at that, as their swords clash again and again and she can gain no upper hand even as sweat drips down her forehead into her narrowed eyes.

Rey's frustration is a shot of adrenaline straight to his heart and in her displeasure Kylo finds new strength, speed where she slows to re-center herself, recover her control, and he uses it to poke a thousand-thousand holes in her defenses that leave her no time to find that balance, that connection to the Force. She reels under the onslaught, twin tips of her lightsaber hissing as it pinwheels around her, and even in retreat she lunges at him, lightsaber hissing against leather and armor. It's good armor, the best, and though it hurts, Kylo is no stranger to pain, this discomfort is just another mark under Rey's name in the tally sheet he keeps in his head. Neither gives quarter after the first touch, they clash and break apart, lock blades and she kicks him as he sears the scarred skin on her knuckles. In a fit of pique she head-butts him, her deplorable upbringing showing itself once more as he tastes blood. The contact leaves them both seeing stars for seconds and then with a growl Kylo throws himself on her, momentum and Force energy combining to bowel them both over. It's a stupid move, poorly calculated and though it succeeds in knocking Rey off her feet she's quick, slippery, and rolls on top of him, pinning the hand wrapped around his lightsaber under her knee, and angling her weapon so a single blade hovers in front of his eye.

"Yield," She advises, rage at being physically overwhelmed tamping down at her satisfaction in assured victory, in her control.

What could he do? Force choking is a possibility, but if she resists, well, he'll lose an eye he's very much attached to. Kylo closes his eyes and lets out a long shaking breath and presses the switch on his lightsaber. The red light dies and for a moment they are bathed in nothing but azure before Rey copies him and stows her weapon in her belt. "Well fought." The words come out a wheeze, the solid weight of girl pressing down on his diaphragm.

Rey rolls away, perhaps because she senses his discomfort or maybe because she's never been one to linger. Still, she's a graceful victor and offers him her hand, digging her heels in and pulling Kylo to his feet. The physical connection sparks warmth between them, and she rubs her hand on her trousers afterwards, perhaps to get the feeling off her skin. Kylo knows there's nothing that can erase that feel. God knows he's tried.

"Do you need any Bacta? I've got some on my ship."

The question comes as a surprise to Kylo; it is off script, out of character, it throws him spiraling out of orbit in confusion. Rey can barely tolerate him, he's certain beyond a doubt that she's using this impromptu sessions to probe for weakness, for something she can exploit when the time for him to die arrives. Care is beyond her, especially in areas which concern him. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

He's not sure if she's feeling him through the Force or just her eyes, bright and perceptive. Her hand comes up, hovering a moment before touching the corner of his mouth where blood wells. "It's nothing." Rey doesn't respond, caught up in studying the scarlet drip balanced on her fingertip. Then she does the unthinkable, pink tongue darting out as quickly as a lightning strike and tasting the unfamiliar substance. Something, neither darkness nor light, surges through his awareness of her and Kylo comprehends. "I'm not going on your damn ship." He drags himself over to where his helmet sits, half buried in the snow, and tucks it under his arm.

"If I was going to try and kidnap you I'd hardly have come alone." Rey shrugs, returns her inert lightsaber to the hook on her belt and picks up a pack. "There's a cabin in the woods an hour away or my ship right here."

"Or my ship," Kylo knows how to make his voice throb with persuasion, imbue it with the Force to convince his listeners, bend their wills to his. Rey simply crosses her arms over her chest and gives him an unimpressed lift of her eyebrow. "I'm not going to kidnap you," He protests the unspoken criticism of that particular option.

"It wouldn't be the first time, nor the second, nor the third." Rey could freeze the sun itself with her attitude. It's not as fun for him as when she's actually angry, but it's something and Kylo's learned to take what he can get. "Besides, the Bacta is on my ship."

"Whatever," Clearly he's not been dealt a winning hand in this, either. Kylo supposes he should be used to it by now. Rey shoots him a mortally offended look at his poor surrender and turns on her heel, marching towards a distant shuttle. Something unpleasant builds in the pit of his stomach, not fear but its small pathetic cousin anxiety, and Kylo's thinks that this is the moment where he is damned, when he hesitates on the threshold and then steps into the cramped quarters. It's both more and less than he had expected of a girl who grew up in a scavenger den, plain, but not Spartan in the same way Imperial quarters had been. Small touches mark it a home, a private, female space. And it's too small to be hiding a Wookie, a definite plus in Kylo's book.

Some, though definitely not all, of the tension slips away from Rey as the hatch seals itself behind them. She digs through a small drawer and pulls out a heavy glass jar of the familiar medicine. "What are you waiting for?" She queries, muscles tensing as the lid sticks and then yields beneath her grip. "Take the armor off, let me see you."

Kylo almost flinches as she sets the jar down with a bang and crosses to him, removing the helmet from his death grip and placing it on a shelf littered with mechanic's tools. Too close, she invades his space, prodding the fixtures that keep his outer robe in place over the armor. "If you want to get me naked all you have to do is ask."

The lewd remark is rewarded with a brief, nonplussed stare and Rey takes a half step back, still in easy reach if either of them consider the martial implications. "Need to get you back to your Master in one piece."

"He won't care," Kylo shrugs off the sleeves of his outer robe, letting it hang over the belt snug around his waist. The metal plates in their black sheathes over his front and back come off slowly, and thin, work worn fingers meet his, helping him lift the protective gear off.

"He should," Rey's voice is cool and calm, but even with her back to him as she carefully sets the armored shirt down in a corner, she can't hide the surge of wrath from him. "Someone should," She adds more quietly, almost beyond the range of human hearing.

Her words flay him to the bone, and Kylo was wrong earlier; this is the moment where he knows he is lost. How can he go back, go anywhere, be anything after this? If the girl feels anything, it is not reflected in her actions as she approaches him again, jar of Bacta in hand as Kylo surrenders himself entirely and removes his undershirt. He closes his eyes against her stare, Force washing over him as she brushes salve coated fingers over the deep red burn on his shoulder, his arm. Her hands are like ice and he gaps at the contact though the pain is meaningless. "Rey."

"Hush," She meets his eyes and brings her free hand up, smoothing the lower terminus of the scar she gave him and the split lip from their most recent combat.

Nerves crackle and snap under her touch, energy sparking where skin meets skin. Kylo isn't sure what he should do with his hands, the twin desires to drag her closer and shove her away tear him asunder. The order for quiet suits him, despite the deep vein of contrarianism that wants to deny her everything. This close, he can see the pale freckles under her eyes, the faint white scar above her eyebrow, practically feel the warm puff of breathe on his skin. She's so close he can feel the heat, the light that radiates off her like a star, casting his shadows into even darker contrast. She could make him great, he knows, he prays, bring out his own darkness with her luminosity. Perhaps, in a different life, were their positions reversed, she could have been a master worth following, worth dying for; a queen in both darkness in light to rival even the greatness of Vader himself.

Rey stretches up on her toes and pressed her lips around his split one and a dam breaks.

He kisses her back, hands fisting in her fraying braid, locking into orbit around her as though she's a gravity well. She is fierce in this as everything else he's ever seen her do, and it stings when she bites down on his already torn mouth. She responds to the pain, he feels her recoil from him, pull back to touch the resonating sensation on her own skin, fingers probing her lip, curious, confused. Kylo smirks down at the bemused expression and flicks his tongue against the small, otherwise insignificant wound. Rey shivers and reaches for him again, dragging her nails down his back, arching against the shared feeling. He finds that nearly as intriguing as the desire she stirs in him; perhaps that explains the sudden surge of interest in his wellbeing. It's an academic interest at this time, one he'll explore later at his leisure. Right now his hands have migrated to the narrow column of neck where the pulse of life thrums under his fingers, down the slope of her shoulder and the rough linen wraps that cover thin muscular arms to her hands. Worker's hands, small and tough, crisscrossed with a thousand tiny ridges of scar from a lifetime ago. His eyes on hers, he brings her hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to the puckered scar he marked her with. It's not an apology, as much as an acknowledgement that whatever this moment is, it changes nothing between them in the end. Rey nods.

Message received.

Kylo gropes the tabletop beside her, snagging the abandoned jar of Bacta and smearing the tips of his fingers liberally. If this changes nothing, if there are no consequences to his actions, then he may as well do as he pleases, right? He's always been good at that, at least, and for some crazy, inexplicable reason that feels slightly less terrifying now than it used to, he wants this. Rey's hand is tiny in his, a fighter versus a destroyer and he turns her knuckles, blistered and oozing subcutaneous fluids upwards, bringing his Bacta-coated fingertips to the abused skin and anointing them with a gentleness that wasn't his. She shivers as the skin hisses and bubbles, healing accelerated exponentially, and brings her free hand up to his face, teasing against his jaw and tangling in his hair. This time when she kisses him it's soft and sweet, tongue instead of teeth. She breaks the kiss at the end, humming contemplatively and flicking her tongue against her lips.

"Why did you do that?" Somehow, he hasn't let go of her hand, trapped between their bodies.

"Wanted to see if I liked it." Rey loosens her grip on his hair, dragging short blunt nails against his scalp, carding through his curls.

He cannot, will not, relinquish complete control of himself, so Kylo stays silent under her ministrations, tilting his head back in submission and biting down to silence any small sounds of pleasure that might escape. "Did you?" His voice still comes out rough, ragged.

"Haven't decided yet," Her smile is too wicked to really belong to the light, and Kylo closes his eyes as she drags her mouth down his neck, shuddering as she tastes his skin, nips his hammering pulse and disentangles her fingers from his to drop feather-light touches on the scars on his chest she hewed there. "Open your eyes."

It's a compulsion Kylo knows well and obeys, snapping his head forward and staring down at the face that floats mid-way up his sternum. Can she know what this will cost her, in the end, to taste the darkness that this flirts with? She meets his stare with eyes wide and dark, pupils dilated and he wonders if she cares at all, this would-be Jedi knight. It's surprising that he thinks to care, even a little. It does not matter, though, certainly not to him, and he keeps her stare as she drags her mouth down again, finding the old pink scar that bisects his chest, hip to shoulder and drops a kiss on the scar tissue over his heart. Her hair tickles his bare skin and he brushes it behind her ear. She seems absorbed in seeking out each old wound, so he returns the favor, mapping the bony back through her shirt and finding the uneven burn of a blaster just below her trapezius. "What's this one?"

"I caught your friend Hux on a bad day," She smiles against his skin as he rubs a lazy circle around the scar.

Kylo snorts and tilts her chin up, "No friend of mine." He kisses her, a little awkwardly, but it's still a blessing in its own way. "Wish I had been there to see that."

Rey stiffens and jabs him in the side rather sharply with a finger. "I'm rather glad you weren't." She smooths over the area with her palm. "Lots of shouting and running, really. You know, 'Die rebel scum', nothing new." She brushes the long jagged scars spiraling over his ribs, tracing the ugly long branches around his back. "This one?"

"You know what that one is." He catches her wandering hand, crushing it in his.

"I want you to say it." If he is hurting her, she shows nothing on her face and in the Force he can feel only her simmering anger, drowning his humiliation.

"Discipline." The word falls flat between them, truth, but not the one she had sought. He feels the response forming on her mouth and crushes his lips against hers to silence the name forming there. The rage and pain surges again, as it always does. It is all Kylo Ren knows, all he'll ever know, and to share in it is all he can give this unfathomable creature of grey.

Somehow, she takes it, absorbs the darkness crashing around him and kisses back in a clashing of teeth and pulling of hair. She drives him back, Force or personality, until his knees bang against the edge of a cot and he collapses, pulling her down with him.

Rey falls forward, pushing him to his elbows as her knees find purchase on either side of his thighs. Her lips don't leave his through the fall, though she digs in with her fingers and sighs against him as she settles her weight over his knees. In this position she's the taller one, though just by a hair's breath, and Kylo has to tilt his head up to look at her. He finds the hem of her shirt, fingers working of their own accord, and skims it over her head, tangled arm wraps falling away with the sweat-stained garment.

Her skin is dusky beneath his pale hands and it's somewhat surprising that for all her youth and short time as a fighter she is scarred nearly as badly as he is. They are ragged, puckered, flesh rent and then treated with the basest flushing of ethanol and bound in cloth, healed with hope and luck and precious little else. Rey squirms under his touch, fingers skating over his scalp and he brings his attention back to the lithe body above him. Her skin is salty with perspiration as he sucks a bruise below her clavicle and she gasps, pushing his head lower, drawing him to her chest. His tongue flicks out against a pink nipple and she hisses, tugging his hair and grinding her hips against his. The gesture is crude but effective; undignified or not Kylo can't not respond to the sudden friction over his crotch, biting down on her shoulder to keep silent. He brings a hand up, kneading the soft flesh, and Rey bows against him again, muscles pulled tight.

Her forehead bumps against his and she plants a butterfly's kiss against his temple. "Take off your pants," Her voice thrums along his nerves again, a voice that he would in this moment do anything for. He fumbles the belt off, tossing it aside, and wraps an arm around Rey's waist, rolling them so he towers over her and can discard his pants. She's wriggling underneath him, quick tinker's fingers working her leggings and underwear off, at least as eager as he is, and he helps ease the material down her knees and over her feet, letting it fall to the side.

Rey pulls him down. Her's is the control here, not his, and for a moment he can only lie there on top of her, the feeling of skin against skin overwhelming. After two decades of violence and pain, he can only bury his face in her neck and breathe, deep meditative breathes that he struggles with so much in other circumstances. There's solace in the darkness, her chin tucked over his head, her hands brushing along his back, down his flank, nails dragging lightly back up. She smells of Bacta and engine grease and he digs his fingers into the sharp bones of her shoulder blades until she arches away from the sensation and nips his earlobe. "Hey," Kylo shivers at the sensation and pulls his head up to look at her. "It's going to be okay," Her eyes are dark, wise and sad, the pad of her thumb rough where it brushes his cheekbone and guides him back down for a kiss. He rolls again, taking her spot on his back, looking up as she angles her hips over his and slides down, painfully, agonizingly slowly until he bottoms out against her and Rey releases a shaky breath and a smile.

His body is not quite his own as Rey sets a languorous pace, holding him beneath her, and his mind follows soon after, conscious thoughts yielding to sensation, flashes of imagery, tastes and textures, his hand brushing the apex of her thighs as she tortures them both on the very razor's edge of release. It's an entirely different kind of mastery, a different kind of pain as she holds him deep in her body, sweat trickling between her breasts, chest heaving as her body fights the control her mind imposes.

Instinct, or maybe the Force itself, though that's a conversation he'd like to never have with his Master thank you kindly, nudges his hand forward, skating through soaking wet curls, nudging delicate folds of flesh aside until he brushes against her clitoris. Her physical response to that has him seeing stars, orgasm building past her control and he rubs her there with his thumb, once, twice, thrice and she screams a name that could have started with a B or an R, and the combination of her nails in his flesh with her complete undoing, resonating through the Force around them throws him headlong after her with a shout heard only by them on this deserted ice rock.

When Kylo comes back to himself, he finds Rey curled like a kitten two-thirds of the way on top of him. Cooling sweat sticks their skin together and she nuzzles his neck and the bite marks inflicted, lazy and content. It's infectious, foreign emotions brush through his mind and he lacks the strength to block them out in this moment. He should, he knows he should, get up and leave. Not come back to any more of these encounters until the end is nigh and they are ready to kill.

Rey is so warm, though, and the room is cold. How could he do otherwise than pull her a little closer, just for a moment, as his heart rate stops its frantic pounding and she spiders her fingers over his side. It tickles. He flinches and her eyes light up like fireworks.

"You're ticklish?"

Kylo Ren, knight of Ren, bats her offending hand away. "No."

The girl is too stubborn to be deterred, and strikes again, face blooming into a smirk as he jumps in his skin in response. "You are! You totally are. Kylo Ren, conqueror of the galaxy, is ticklish!"

The power comes easily to his fingertips and he forcibly stills her hands and pushes her back down, into his arms. Grinning, she doesn't fight him; he doesn't want to think about how easily she could get out if she tried. She fits so well against him, small and perfectly formed, pressing his lips to her forehead is a thoughtless gesture, but one that brings home just how dangerous this is. For them both.

Rey makes a small sound of discontent as he sits up and casts around for their discarded clothing. "You don't have to go." She hesitates and then joins him, slipping back into her leggings and tunic, winding the long strips of linen around her arms.

Kylo says nothing, letting the chill carry him back to the real world, the one beyond the confines of this shuttle, where he is a Sith and she is a Jedi. Keeping his back to her, he dresses himself, underclothes, armor, robe, belt, and gloves. Once skin is safely hidden from sight, he turns back to her, crosses the narrow space and presses a searing kiss born of frustration and fear against her mouth, biting down, perhaps harder than he ought have, for he tastes blood. She becomes cold at that, eyes hard and angry as he slots his helmet back on. "We will meet again."

"You bet your ass we will." Rey stands and slams the ramp open. "And when we do, there will be a reckoning."

He felt her watching him as the snow swirled around his boots all the way until he made the leap to hyperspace.


End file.
